What really matters now is how the council recovers; where it goes from here. The Champion has covered the aftermath of the fire extensively and we’ve published an article about the chambers potentially being relocated back into the centre of town, the Liverpool central business district. I believe this could be a good idea as yes, it may help to stimulate the southern end of town which is struggling, as so many councillors and local business people suggest. But what will it really change? It wouldn't be the solution to the more serious problems which face the council.

There are many uncertainties hanging over the collective heads of the council since the fire. And this is the time for true leadership. As I mentioned the arsonists will be caught, eventually, but what if this isn’t an isolated incident? I can only imagine how the council staff are feeling right now. How will the councillors work to make them feel safe and secure in their jobs and their workplace?

Also, yet again, something negative has happened in Liverpool, casting another long shadow on our town. The councillors weren’t responsible for this event, but what can they do now to remove extra level of negativity from Liverpool’s image? And is there anything they can do? I mean lets face it, this is just the biggest of a long parade of bad news for the council.

Of course another problem is that rate payers are incredibly worried. Their concerns range from them having to pay extra rates in order to fund the reconstruction of the administration centre, to the council being the target of a vindictive threatening group, which could endanger the whole area. They’re uncertain about what will change in council’s functions and many have assumed that Liverpool will stall for the next year and a half, while the councillors and staff wade their way out of this mess. So those worries need to be alleviated as soon as possible.

I’ve got to say genuinely that I’ve been more than impressed with how the council as a whole has coped with the crisis, in particular the councillors, who do often act in ways that puzzle me. This time however, I believe that they’ve stepped up to the plate and really gone about things properly. Liverpool Mayor Wendy Waller has shown true leadership and the councillors have not made any inappropriate or poorly timed allegations, as is sometimes the norm for some of them. Of course the metropolitan media has tried to exploit the situation, as is there norm, with one local group, who are challenging a council decision, falling victim to their implicantions about who the potential arsonists were. But it seems that the comments Ms Waller and Cr Jim McGoldrick made were taken out of context in most cases. And, which is most admirable, the councillors have all acted quickly and decisively to make decisions that will get council moving and to make sure that staff can keep working.

Of course much of this work has been done by senior directors and particularly the acting general manager Farooq Portelli who has shown real strength in a crisis, from what I can tell, anyway. Mr Portelli acted decisively to implement the emergency plan that his predecessor Phil Tolhurst had put into place and he has demonstrated true sensitivity to how his staff are feeling by giving them opportunities to take leave and consult a counselor at this difficult time. I think everyone has been universally impressed with his approach and it appears that he may have increased his chances of no longer being just the acting general manager, but taking over the role permanently. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see on that.

That point brings me right to one of the problems that the council is facing since the fire. There has been a lot of upheaval since the election of this council. The first popularly elected group since 2004, when the council went into administration, following another very public crisis. That of course, was the Oasis development debacle, which is still affecting the area to this day, especially if you pay attention to Councillor Gary Lucas’ very frequent reminders on the subject. And the biggest challenge facing the council is that it needs a new general manager.

The former general manager, Phil Tolhurst, a strong leading hand for both the officers through the four years of administration and the councillors in the first 18 months of their term, left very abruptly earlier this year. To say he left council at a difficult time was an understatement. It seems even more obvious now than when he first resigned that he was leaving because he couldn’t stand being pulled in two different directions by the two disparate groups of councillors any longer. But of course, him leaving was a bad look and caused a lot of instability at the council.

Many of the council’s staff had only worked with Mr Tolhurst and many trusted him, despite the standard conflicts between the different levels of authority in different organisations and some implications that he had been covering up mistakes. So his departure caused, not surprising, a great upheaval to the operation of the council. And apart from that the councillors have been pulling in different directions since they have been elected and their separation has only been increasing over time.

In the last council meetings before the fire, the Liberal, independent and Liverpool Community Independents Team Councillors were pushing against Labor with some serious might. They were questioning the motives of the Labor councillors and staff and not allowing any of their aims or interests to be achieved.

Despite their almost constant assurances to the opposite, the Liberal councillors, i.e. Tony Hadchiti, Ned Mannoun and Mazhar Hadid, were playing politics and working to achieve their aims at the expense of what Labor wants. That’s not to say that the Mayor Wendy Waller and her followers, chiefly Cr Anne Stanley were not making their views known and doing their best to reclaim some power. But the Liberal Councillors had the upper hand, and really still do, having convinced the independent Cr Gary Lucas, the LCIT representatives Nadia Napoletano and Peter Harle and even rogue Labor Cr McGoldrick to ``join their team’’ and therefore gaining the majority vote in the council.

But Liverpool has been a Labor town, for a lont time and the party isn’t used to not being in control. So it was fighting back the best it could. Liverpool MP Paul Lynch’s letter to Local Government Minister Barbara Perry after Mr Tolhurst's resignation spoke volumes. He was absolutely vehemently angry about the Liberal councillors snatching up control and he was willing to do anything to get them out. Whatever you believe his influence or level of control of the council was before the Liberals stepped up to dominate, you would have to admit he once wielded some influence over the decision made at council. So it’s easy to see why Mr Lynch is angry. And then he got the two other local State MPs Alison Megarrity and Andrew McDonald to jump on the bandwagon with him, in Parliament House no less. So that caused another flurry of controversy and again destabilised the political landscape in Liverpool and yet again took local politicians further away from ever working together calmly.

But obviously it wasn't a sedate and reasoned state of affairs. Well, I guess it almost never is at Liverpool, but the point is all wasn’t fine and dandy before the fire. There were problems before there was smoke wafting through the chambers and those problems are only intensified now that the blackened frame of the building is casting a dark shadow on our area from 1 Hoxton Park Road.

So the question is: will the challenge of dealing with the fire’s repercussion make the councillors consolidate, work together and solve the problems as a team, or will they just push them further apart? We will wait and see. But my gut tells me that nothing will change, that the divisions between the two councillor groups were too strong and nothing will give us a unified, controversy-free council now.

But I hope that the opposite will be true. That the councillors will put their disputes aside and work together for the betterment of the area. The non-Labor councillors have some quite visionary and admirable ideas about what Liverpool's future should look like and they should focus on achieving those, instead of holding Labor down. Building a stadium in Liverpool, a cafe pricinct in the CBD, holding a Liverpool Elected Leaders summit and cleaning up the 2168 area as well as others, are all excellent plans. Lets hope that at least some of them can be followed through with despite this fire.

What do you think? How will this destructive fire affect the Liverpool area in the long term? Will it hold back development; will it stall the area in its current form? Will the councillors rise above and work together to better the area? Tell us what you think below.